Dear first time camp parent,
I see you. I see your soul-deep knowledge that Jewish overnight camp is invaluable. I see your casually crossed arms and confident smiles: “Oh yeah, it’s the first summer! It’s definitely time.”
I was you just one year ago, calmly saying “you don’t really need to bring 11 t-shirts, but if it makes you feel better…” and “We will make sure you have plenty of extra flashlight batteries…” and “I suspect you won’t have to wear a kippah if you don’t really feel like it.”
I was the rock. This time last year, I was reassuring my husband, who never went to overnight camp, that not only is it perfectly normal, but it’s good and healthy. It’s an unparalleled opportunity for our then-11-year-old to prove to himself what he can do. He, who has spent nine years as an only child! He, a lover of the home routine! He, who had never slept anywhere away from us besides the houses of relatives! He can do it! And if he doesn’t like it, he won’t have to go back.
But he has to prove to himself that he can do it.
Yes, I was you just one year ago. So now let me tell you what to expect:
Despite your confidence and soul-deep knowledge that summer camp is good and important, you will wave off your child, and, whether at the curb, in your car or in the privacy of your home, you will cry. Uncontrollably and embarrassingly. While wearing dish gloves, while answering work emails, while changing diapers, you will cry.
Twenty-four hours after your child departs, your phone will ping. And that will be the start of the two- to four-week period when you look through online photos like a college kid the year Facebook was invented. You will happily, and with great anticipation, study hundreds of pictures of children you will never meet for the chance to spot your own. And when you do, you will send said picture to your sister, writing, “Does it look like he’s been eating?” or, to your husband, “I think he wore that shirt yesterday,” or to your mother-in-law, “See! He’s having so much fun!” and then again to your husband, “He does look like he’s having fun, right?”
Your grocery bill will drop. Dramatically.
You will relish and mourn in equal parts the new and temporary social dynamic that defines your household.
It was right around this time last year, about three weeks before Darby left for his first summer at Jewish overnight camp, that I told him quietly, and in the privacy created by the bedtime routine: you know, it’s okay if you don’t want to go.
His response?
“I’m really nervous, but I really want to go.”
And that’s the heart of it, isn’t it? We send our kids to Jewish overnight camp because of all the studies that tell us there’s no better way to form a Jewish adult. We send our kids to Jewish overnight camp because we loved it, and we want them to love it too. We send our kids to Jewish overnight camp because everyone’s doing it.
But really, we send our kids to overnight camp because it’s scary. For them. For us. And we have to prove to ourselves, just like they do, that we can do it.
We are three weeks from shipping Darby off, and I have no choice but to trust that we’ve done an okay job. I have to trust that he’ll brush his teeth and wear his retainer, that he’ll mostly listen to his camp counselors, and that above all, he’ll be kind. I have to trust him not to do anything overly stupid. A little stupid is okay, but not overly stupid.
It’s not just a first step for our kids, but a first step for us.
I see you, first time camp parent, wondering if you’ve made the right choice. I see you feigning complete confidence, hiding your fear and your grief that your child is growing up. I see you hoping against hope that you’re raising them well enough to succeed in this trial of independence.
But I see your kids, too. And I see mine.
And they’ll do just fine.
Your friend,
Bridey